🔒 Locked

console problem

Started by ATronic Jan 8, 2002 at 9:42 PM 15 replies 600+ views

Original Post

Jan 8, 2002 at 9:42 PM

Hey, I have tried to find this many places and failed. I want to clear the contents of my console app''s window. Such as in dos when you type CLS. I tried the known command

  system("cls");

But it had no effect. Is there another way? It needs to be fairly fast so I can get a decent looking refresh rate for my ASCII based rpg. Thanks a ton to all who answer. Right now I''m stuck doing something equivilant to

  cout<<"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n...

Thanks again. Alex Broadwin A-Tronic Software & Design ----- "if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me." "The answer is out there." "Please help, I''m using Windows!"

Martee

126

Martee

Jan 8, 2002 at 9:55 PM

There are better ways, but this should do it ...

        
DWORD numCharactersWritten;
COORD consoleCoords = {0, 0};
GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(consoleHandle, &consoleInfo);
FillConsoleOutputCharacter(consoleHandle, ' ', consoleInfo.dwSize.X * consoleInfo.dwSize.Y,
    consoleCoords, &numCharactersWritten);
FillConsoleOutputAttribute(consoleHandle, consoleInfo.wAttributes,
    consoleInfo.dwSize.X * consoleInfo.dwSize.Y, consoleCoords, &numCharactersWritten);

... where consoleInfo is a CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO, and consoleHandle is a HANDLE to a console.

Edited by - Martee on January 8, 2002 10:57:45 PM

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 8, 2002 at 10:08 PM

I don''t think this will work in my situation. This is the base of the console app, the skeleton code you begin with.

  
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main( void )
{
	cout << "This is a test" ;
	return 0;
}

I have no win32 at all, nothing using windows.h! So how would I clear this screen. I have only basic knowledge on console apps, as you probably can see.

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

Martee

126

Martee

Jan 8, 2002 at 10:24 PM

If you include windows.h, it should work. I used the above code in a similar program. But otherwise ... I don''t know of any non-Windows ways of doing it.

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 8, 2002 at 10:44 PM

I tried including windows.h, no luck. Thanks anyway. I decided to make it using win32 and win32 draw functions. I''m building my own basic cout with \n and so on. More flexible anyway I guess. Easy to port too. Thanks for your time.

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

Drakkor

Jan 8, 2002 at 10:47 PM

It''s a little ugly, but you should be using a console buffer anyway... this might help you on your way...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/conchar_25b9.asp

D

Dredge-Master

Jan 9, 2002 at 11:34 AM

is it win32 or dos based.

If it is not a win32 exe (if your lucky you can still pull it off) jsut #include <conio.h> and use clrscr();

there are equivilent functions and workarounds in stdio, but I forgot what they were as I always used conio.

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 9, 2002 at 4:07 PM

win32 exe I believe. As usual, an emulated console.

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

hewhay

Jan 9, 2002 at 5:14 PM

did you included cstdlib?
If you did what happened with system ("cls");

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 9, 2002 at 5:17 PM

as my first post says, absolutely nothing.

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

strtok

Jan 9, 2002 at 5:25 PM

I''m not sure, but I think that Win32 consoles may support ANSI escape codes, because I seem to remember porting a really old BBS door game I wrote to Win32. There should be a code to clear the screen. Search the net for ANSI escape sequences and you''ll probably be able to find something useful.

hewhay

Jan 9, 2002 at 5:27 PM

I''m not sure why that happened and there are no compilers around here so if this doesn''t work, sorry. Try doing a cout << flush;
before the system("cls");. Because the buffer may be flushing after the call. Also i think that there is an exec function maybe it works there..

By the way there is the posibility of your compiler having conio.h, if you do there is a function call clearscreen or cls or something like that, read the header

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 9, 2002 at 9:16 PM

Found what I needed in conio.h, thanks a ton. One other thing, anyone know how to input a single char without waiting for the user to hit return?

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

ironfroggy

Jan 9, 2002 at 10:58 PM

using C++ iostream of C IO functions? I personally enjoy the simplicity of some older C functions.

gavco98

141

gavco98

Jan 10, 2002 at 1:43 PM

getch(). Cant remember what header its in though, its either conio.h or stdio.h try em both

ATronic

Author

ATronic

Jan 10, 2002 at 4:48 PM

Thanks a ton!

Alex Broadwin
A-Tronic Software & Design
-----
"if you fail in life, you were destined to fail. If you suceed in life, call me."
"The answer is out there."
"Please help, I''m using Windows!"

Topic Locked

This topic has been locked by a moderator. New replies are not allowed.